Dungeon Keeper Ami / Tropes Q to Z

Tropes A to D | Tropes E to P | Tropes Q to Z

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Q-R

• Questioning Title?: Many chapters, sometimes to make the statement unsure:
  • "Corruption?"
  • "Strategy?"
  • "A Solution to the Reaper Problem?"
• Quieting the Unquiet Dead: Ghosts are souls being tortured and bound to some sort of physicality. "Killing" them actually frees them from torment into presumably their afterlives.
• Quirky Mini Boss Squad: The fairies are one in opposition to Mercury.
• Raising the Steaks: Crowned Death and his minions can make zombie animals:
  • From "Interception": "Giant octopus Zombie"
  • From "Backfire - Part 1":
    • "[Un]dead shrimp"
    • "the decaying bulk of a whale trying to roll over"
    • "[Un]dead starfish"
    • "coral reef"
• Rage Breaking Point: Ami is used to people being suspicious of her, she really is, but Camilla assuming that she's keeping thousands of civilians alive just to sacrifice them later? Really comes at a bad time.
  Mercury: That's what you think of me?
  Camilla: But-
  Mercury: Look! Look at those blueprints! Do you have any idea of the logistics and costs involved in properly caring for eight thousand individuals? That's a dining hall with seats for about five hundred people. I need several of those just to feed everyone in a timely manner! They also need water for proper hygiene, which means aqueducts and sewers, not to mention pumping it up or melting ice. Bathrooms, pools, fountains. Housing. Heating. Farms. Streets and corridors to easily move between all of those locations. Space for leisure or trade. Look, the point is that keeping them alive, healthy, and happy involves much more effort than simply keeping them alive. Why would I go through the effort of building all this for them if I wanted to use them as sacrifices? Why not just throw them into a hole instead and toss them some food as needed? And why give them back their sight? Think about it!
• Railroading: Ami needs more power to disable the Horned Reaper, but she doesn't want to actually claim a Dungeon Heart and become a Keeper, so she instead studies the Heart, and is able to determine how to directly access its power. Unfortunately, it turns out that drawing on the Heart's power by any means still counts as a claim. The one real benefit of her inadvertent claiming method is that she can honestly tell the Light Gods that she never wanted to be a Keeper, and they know she's being truthful.
• Rapid Aging:
  • In An Awkward Talk, when it's discussed how a "necromantic withering spell" works:
    The spell speeds up the organism’s metabolism and supercharges its cells, causing them to divide at a vastly accelerated rate, but the influx of nutrients from the environment remains the same.” Upon seeing the confused looks her explanation had earned her, she shifted mental gears and put it into words that Usagi would have understood, too. “The spell makes the plant age rapidly, but it doesn’t get enough food to fuel its growth, so it dies.”
  • In another case, an "eons-in-an-instant" spell is attempted on one of Ami's ice golems — but since they don't age, and since the imp spell uses a sliver of Queen Metallia's power, instead of being harmed, it mutates into a fang-toothed monstrous youma form.
• Rapid-Fire "But!": When a Dwarf Duke is in shock over Ami doing something that is impossible for normal Keepers, he goes, "But, but, but, Keeper!"
• Rapid Hair Growth: A Torian-altered 'Beastly Beard Booster' spell, intended for use on hair, and given too much energy, causes this to floor-reaching lengths. When Ami uses it, she remarks that it makes her look less plain.
• Rate-Limited Perpetual Resource: Ami's gem furnaces create an effectively endless but slow rate of gem production, capped by the number of furnaces active at once.
• Recycled Title: Two uses of "Ultimatum", because it happens twice: First, Second.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: All keepers, as an effect of being connected to a Dungeon Heart. Also connected with Glowing Eyes of Doom as their eyes get brighter when feeling strong emotion, particularly anger, or when channeling vast amounts of mana.
• Reduced to Dust: Multiple:
  • Vampires turn to ashes when they truly die, or at least, when killed with lightning.
  • Youma do so when they die, as said, shown, and referenced in multiple instances:
    • Such as in "A Capture", when Ami imagines Holy Burns Evil happening to one of her minions, Dark General Jadeite, but dying like a youma instead:
      her over-active imagination taunted her with the terrifying image of him screaming and turning to dust like a youma upon being brought inside the temple.
    • In "Generals Plot", one youma faked her own death:
      the forgotten pile of dust shuddered and shifted, and a tiny hand poked out through its side. A miniature version of the green-skinned youma crawled out, hatred gleaming in her too-large eyes.
• Refuge in the West: In "Investigation", when Ami is diagramming out her plan to claim the whole of the Avatar Islands to ensure her safety, she's currently safe in her beachhead on the west side of the islands, because she came from the mainland that lies in that direction and established as soon as she could.
  A disc of blue spread outward from a spot on the west coast of the roughly oval-shaped continent, covering more and more of its surface as it travelled east.
• Remembered I Could Fly: Multiple:
  • From Generals Plot:
    "Hey! Come back here!" Sailor Moon whined, panting as she looked at the back of the fleeing monster who had remembered that she could fly after being chased for several blocks, and was now taking a shortcut over a building.
  • At the outset of the War on Crowned Death. Once, when assaulted by a priest of Crowned Death, Mercury is confronted by the priest's apparent invulnerability. She proceeds to throw everything and the kitchen sink at him. Unfortunately, this includes the Mantle of the Avatar, a powerful artifact she recovered in the previous story arc. This artifact was itself the object Crowned Death was looking for- and his priest escapes with it in his custody. Turns out the priest was not using a powerful intangibility spell, just a simple illusion that Ami could have seen through easily if she had thought to analyze it using her visor. (Although that would have meant entering the room, which she'd rather not do.)
• Remote Vitals Monitoring: Ami's Mercury Computer is a Magical Computer with Everything Sensor-like abilities, and can look at physical condition enough to work as an ersatz Lie Detector in "Adamantine":
  The readings on her screen indicated that the padding of the Duke's armour kept him warm under the ice, and there was no shivering to obscure his body's involuntary reactions. There were no indications that he had been less than truthful, either.
• Removed Achilles' Heel: It's an expensive move, but Ami gets rid of all her organic Dungeon Hearts because the built-in vulnerability is just too dangerous. Azzathra is seriously displeased when he discovers what she's done, but despite his anger, her remaining crystal heart, which isn't under his control, still allows her to return from the dark gods' realm.
• Respawn Point: Coupled with Resurrective Immortality in all known instances:
  • How vampires recover from fatal injuries, respawning in their coffins.
  • Dungeon Keepers with more than one Dungeon Heart. If one of their Dungeon Hearts is destroyed, they will respawn at another one after a while. However, the intervening time is spent in the presence of the dark gods, which is generally highly unpleasant for the Keeper.
• Resurrection Gambit: As a Dungeon Keeper, Ami can revive so long as one of her Dungeon Hearts dies, which kills her, but revives as long as another is still alive. She uses a spell to sacrifice one to kill all her enemies, but revives at another one.
• Retail Therapy: In Out-of-Dungeon Experiences, a shopping trip is suggested as a way for Ami to relieve her stress:
  It would do you a world of good to just relax for a bit and have some fun shopping, like a normal girl your age. All that worrying can't be good for you.”
• Revenge: Crowned Death is furious with Ami after his underwater temple is destroyed, centuries of work up in flames, and throws every military resource he has at her.
• Reverse Psychology: In A Promotion, a character (it's Mukrezar) gets a warning to avoid Mercury, and his companion (it's his butler) wonders if it's reverse psychology or not:
  "That blasphemer is far beyond your ability to handle. You are, in fact, expressly forbidden from interfering with her. Now go and fulfil your orders!" The crystal ball went inert.
  "Reverse psychology, or simply an honest assessment?"
• Rigged Spectacle Fight: Multiple combatants, of women against men, but that's not what's rigged about it.
  • The duel between Ami, a teenage magical Bookworm, against a muscular, tall, Big Red Devil, mandated by Dark God Azzathra, is meant to be a fancy execution. Its rigged nature is noted in multiple chapters:
    • "Out-of-Dungeon Experiences" establishes that Ami's magic, which could give her the edge over the Reaper's brute strength, will be crippled: "magic used during the battle is mirrored. Beneficial enchantments are applied to each combatant. Aggressive spells hit both the target and the caster."
    • "More Lessons" uncovers that any attempt at Loophole Abuse on Ami's part will be punished.
      "Oh, and there's another tactic we have to scratch. In one fight, a captured elderly hero wizard developed a spell to turn himself into an exact replica of himself so that the duplication effect would bring his heavily-armoured opponent down to his level. Azzathra was furious and turned his opponent back into his true form, then copied him, thus turning the fight even more one-sided than it previously was."
    • And when the fight actually occurs, Azzathra intervenes and changes the rules whenever it looks like Ami might win. She flies up above the arena and bombards the Reaper with lightning? There's now a force field restricting them to the ground. She's able to teleport away from his strikes? Time to shut down all magic use.
  • As summarized in "Informal Debriefing": The champions of two armies fighting: Cathy versus the World's Best Warrior, where magic is used to unbalance the sides, resulting in a surprising victory, due to Throwing the Fight:
    "No, it's perfectly normal to fall unconscious after being head-butted in the invisible shield protecting your face," the swordswoman muttered. She poked at the bandage around her forehead and grimaced a little. "So yeah, I'm pretty sure he was faking it."
• Right Out of My Clothes: One of Ami's early accidents when learning to teleport is to leave her clothing behind. It's better than the previous attempt, where the body that she was inhabiting exploded.
  Jadeite: A near-perfect first try, but you may wish to take your outfit along on the next try. The problem was an overly specific focus on yourself, I assume.
• Ring of Power: Mukrezar apparently created a number of schemes involving these during his takeover of the Avatar Isles. They are notable in the fact that almost none of them actually worked.
• Ring Out: Azzathra's arena is surrounded by an apparently Bottomless Pit, said to lead straight to his domain. Falling in counts as a loss. Ami eventually gets the Reaper to stumble back over the edge, although it's a near thing.
• Robe and Wizard Hat: In Audience With The King, it's mentioned that academy-trained professional magicians wear standard blue robes and pointy hat.
• Romantic Spoonfeeding: In "Improving Logistics", Ami briefly fantasizes about Jadeite feeding her pieces of the shark she's carving.
• Royal Favorite: In the first chapter, when the first Horned Reaper sees Sailor Mercury's short skirt, it leads to his guess that she's "some lord's pampered plaything".
• Runic Magic:
  • Instant Runes are made as part of the most common summoning spell.
  • Snyder hammers some runes into stone to use in magical wards.
• Run or Die: After having her identity revealed in front of an army of the Light and having her Reaper suggest to kill them all, Mercury casts a Shabon Spray and calls on her new teammates to run away.
• Running Gag: Several.
  • Ami keeps suffering Clothing Damage of various kinds and being publicly exposed, whether it's conjured clothing being dispelled, ice armour being melted, magical clothing transformations giving her a loincloth, conjured materials imitating her form without bothering to include clothes, teleporting just her body...She gradually becomes more resigned to it, but is still pretty self-conscious.
  • Everything Ami does keeps feeding people's assumptions that she's a depraved pansexual torturer. The first few times are just misunderstood accidents, like accidentally swapping minds with the Reaper and having people walk in to see her underdressed and sweaty body sitting astride and berating the Reaper's body, but once she has a reputation, it just keeps snowballing. Her friends stay by her bedside overnight when she's had a very stressful day and needs comfort? The dungeon's minions are quite amused when they leave her bedroom in the morning. Keeping prisoners well-fed and healthy, but not letting them go because they know her weaknesses? She didn't kill them, so she's obviously planning to make worse use of them! And why she wants to invent a spell that can maintain the target at a constant temperature no matter how hot the fire gets, well, that's best left to the imagination, right?

S

• Sane Boss, Psycho Henchmen: Ami has to take quite a lot of "lesser evil" options, and her selection of employees is no exception. Her closest advisors are trusted friends who support her efforts to be a good influence on the world, but beneath them are a motley crew of Blood Knights, Combat Sadomasochists, cannibals, magical Mad Scientists, worshippers of evil gods, or any combination of the above. She isn't thrilled about any of it, but she does need the help and recognises that they're less dangerous to the world if they're working for her than if they're just running loose.
  She didn't want a murderous psychopathic beast like him! He had slaughtered so many of her goblins! The more rational part of her insisted that she wanted to see him in Wemos' employ even less.
• Saved to Enslave: Some of Ami's minions began serving her after she rescued or spared them. Justified since she has a lot more power to help them — eg teleporting them out of a tight situation — if they count as her minions. That's how she was able to rescue Jered, Cathy, and Snyder, then later Jadeite and the imprisoned youmas.
• Sealed Evil in a Can:
  • The world's adamantine deposits are the can sealing away the evil of a deceased Dark God. The dwarfs try to use a similar idea to get rid of particularly dangerous Keepers by tricking them into a warded airtight adamantine chamber and locking them in, but in that case the evil isn't supposed to survive in the can for long.
  • Horned Reapers are also buried away by Keepers, because a Keeper getting rid of them in any other way is bound for retribution from the Dark Gods.
• Sea of Sand: Malleus's dungeon is buried under a great sandy desert.
• Sea Serpents: In The High Temple of Crowned Death, sea serpents are mentioned as a more fearsome variant of sea monster than the ones already seen.
• Secret Message Wink: The Avatar winks at Cathy right before they throw the fight, getting him out of a fight he didn't want.
• Secret Room: From Research Breakthroughs:
  Ami's private lab was so secret that it didn't even have an entrance and could only be reached by teleportation.
• Seeing Through Another's Eyes: A Dungeon Keeper can do it with any of their minions. Ami discovers that she can at least do it to imps, in Intra-Party Conflict, having an imp looking at a lock:
  She could almost see the lock before her, badly damaged, hanging between her hands and against the tree bark. She needed a moment to realise that she did see it, from the perspective of the imp.
• Self-Constructed Being: Ami develops a spell to make ice golems that she controls, and she can use her possession powers on them.
• Sentenced Without Trial: In "Noble Conversations", when Ami is talking to an enemy noble about how she was forced on the defensive when an emergency forced her to move onto lands occupied by someone else and they immediately militarily retaliated, despite being asked to negotiate:
  Ami: By your own laws, I should have been listened to when I asked to negotiate. It is my right as an empress.
• Serenade Your Lover: One of the things General Jadeite learned from reading romance novels, and a discarded plan to get Mercury to fall more in love with him, as said in Beryl's Plan:
  Somehow, he didn't think she would be impressed if he serenaded her from below a balcony.
• Serial Escalation: Mercury's inventive Magitek approach to the setting leads to ever more awesome ways she manages to defeat her enemies. She's just reluctant to use some of the more spectacular methods, in part because she doesn't want to give any of her enemies ideas. However, her sister Tiger has none of these inhibitions and gleefully fills Crowned Death's underwater temple fortress with a huge amount of Chlorine Trifluoride using the temple's own dungeon heart. For the uninitiated, that chemical is so reactive that it will vaporize rocks, make water explode (releasing a cloud of acids), burn asbestos and ignite glass and sand on contact. Oh, its byproducts are carcinogenic, too...
• Sex Is Violence: Possibly mixed with Orgasmic Combat, with the first Reaper, when he's switched bodies with Ami:
  The enthusiasm with which the Reaper took to killing was rather disturbing. Ami hoped with all his heart that those little moans and gasps he heard over the clanging impacts and crumbling noises were only signs of strain and effort.
• Sex Slave: Malleus's slaves, who also doubled as Breeding Slaves, as said:
  To Malleus, the poor girls chained naked to the walls were nothing but objects of convenience, there to sate his lusts and produce offspring.
• Sexual Euphemism: When Ami was thinking about Malleus's memories, in Oh Gods!:
  Right now, her brain was working with several experiences of having a good time doing that with other girls
• Sexy Backless Outfit: In Unexpected Visitors, where Landra is first described, she's wearing "a back-free dress that went to mid thigh", which, like all of the clothing in Ami's dungeon at that point, is inclined to be sexually suggestive due to influences from her dungeon. More specifically, her anti-hostile corruption measures forcing everything in her dungeon to have a theme of fertility.
• Sexy Soaked Shirt: In "Urgent Decisions":
  Ami shuffled her feet under his inspection. "Glamoured ice golem," she explained.
  "Oh, so that's why you are covered in water droplets," Jered said, his gaze pointed straight at her chest. "Nice dress, by the way."
  The black garment with golden decorations resembled her Keeper uniform and gathered tiny droplets as if it was ice-cold. Keeping in theme with its wet appearance, it clung to her skin.
  Blushing, Ami pulled her cloak shut tight. "No, that's actually the corruption's fault," she explained with a grimace. "The fabric is neither cold nor wet."
• Shadow Walker: Implied in "What a Mess". Alphel's assassin, Juzint, seems to teleport through shadows as she prepares to assassinate a fairy:
  Razor-sharp blades sprang from the woman's fingertips as she searched the sunlit roof for the nearest shadow. The chimney was casting a line of darkness onto the straw, which would suit her needs just fine.
  
  Like a column of tar, Juzint's black-masked face and shoulders rose from the shadow that the red-bricked chimney was casting onto the inn's thatched roof. Unaware, her target stood with her back to the scarred assassin, channelling magical power into a diagram painted onto the straw.
• Shoot the Dog: The Light Gods are sympathetic to Ami's plight. Really, they are. Nevertheless, they are trying to capture and imprison her — since they believe that as things stand, her intended course of action, returning to Earth, threatens billions of people and would allow the Dark Gods to spread to another world.
  • The saddest thing? It seems that the Dark Gods are already halfway there. Metallia is already semi-aware and the Vermin Lord has some of its minions attacking the Dark Kingdom.
• Shout-Out: Multiple.
  • One of Nephrite's plans to harvest energy involved a girl and her passion for (and lack of skill in) cooking. To "thank" him, her family strong-armed Nephrite into getting a taste of the daughter's oh-so-delectable food. Later, he's having trouble not regurgitating it in Beryl's throne room. The way it is written makes it obvious the girl in question is Akane.
  • The author has stated that the Avatar's powers were based off of the capabilities of a low-Essence Solar.
  • The Dwarves in this story are based off of the Dwarf Fortress Dorfs.
  • Nero, Keeper Arachne's torturer, makes a reference to the Evil Overlord List when he sneaks by several people in the form of a snake: "Whoever had written that turning into a snake never helped was an idiot of the highest caliber."
  • Watchmen gets a quote during the Underworld Invasion.
  "You insolent- look! That, right there, is all of Keeper Mercury's strength that counts! Her best troops! We are too far from her dungeon for her to transport them back, so when the portal collapses, they'll be trapped here with us with no way to escape!"
  "I think you mean 'and then we'll be trapped here with them'," the crone contradicted.
  • A Dark Elf is mentioned once to be wearing 'a red-feathered cloak and a silly hat'; this might be a reference to Final Fantasy's Red Mage.
  • Ami's special youma-empowered imps are described as quite similar to Doozers in appearance.
  • Cathy and Jered might be a subtle reference to Final Fantasy VI. Cathy is an Action Girl who uses swords, and is the conscience of the group prior to joining Mercury (she is the last to sign up and is the most reluctant in doing so). Jered is a Loveable Rogue and a Kleptomaniac Hero who encourages Cathy to join. They are, for most of the first two arcs, the only Official Couple (as well as a Battle Couple). They are both blond(e). These are all traits of Celes Chere and Locke Cole.
• Shrinking Violet: Lishika, by youma standards. Although that may be because she seems to be Beryl's beacon to the Dungeon Keeper realm.
• Shrouded in Myth: The Dark Empress List mentioned in the Memetic Badass entry also counts as this in-universe, as it's pretty much what almost everyone holds as common knowledge about her — including both light and dark major nations' intelligence services, the Dark Gods, other Keepers, and her own followers outside her inner circle. You can read it at the "Awesome" tab.
• Single Language Planet: It seems everyone on Adushul speaks the same language, which makes sense because they all know the same gods, so global communication is useful, even if they're split between good and evil.
• Single-Use Shield: Introduced in "Nero's Spell (Part 1)":
  magical trinkets and consumables- that reminds me..." [...] a ceramic disc with three embossed runes.
  "Here, that's for you. I acquired an extra." Cathy looked at the ceramic amulet resting on her open palm and traced the golden lines with one finger. "Magical? What does it do?"
  "One-use shield charm. Crack it to release the spell. It's meant as an emergency defence.
• Sinister Scythe: Horned Reapers use a scythe as their main weapon, as per Dungeon Keeper canon. It turns out that Ami's first Reaper knows just a single spell, which conjures a loincloth and a scythe; Ami later copies the spell to equip her goblins and train them as Reaperbot pilots.
• Skeletons in the Coat Closet: Mentioned every so often, usually in regards to death priests:
  • Death priests wear animal skulls on their clothing that help them cast spells, revive themselves, and things like that.
  • Cathy assumes that she and everyone else has to wear that aesthetic to conform with the dungeon's themes, after that is required to keep its corruption from altering the clothing.
• The Sleepless: The artificial, magically powered ice golems don't need to sleep, and neither does Ami, when she's possessing one. Physically, at least. Mentally, it's still important for her to relax, and her advisors routinely call her out if she's overworking herself.
  When had she last slept? Not today, not yesterday. The day before, perhaps? That seemed wrong, too. "I’m fairly sure it hasn’t been longer than a week yet," she admitted after a moment.
• Sleep Deprivation: Multiple instances have happened. Usually for Ami:
  • In Strategy Meeting, where "Nobody had gotten any sleep since that night on the road, and that had been more than twenty-four hours ago." They spent the time they would've slept preparing for an attack with a very small force to take place in a week.
  • As recounted in "Exhaustion", Ami stayed awake for four days straight in an ice golem body, so she could maintain enough attention to handle "unforeseen complications" from a rescue mission.
• Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration: Deliberate Integration. The fanfic incorporates and explains many of the differences between the first and second Dungeon Keeper games:
  • Older-style Crystal Hearts can only build rooms one tile at a time and use gold for all their spells, while newer Organic Hearts can fill large spaces all at once and use mana for spells.
  • Imps spawned from Crystal Hearts are heavier and denser than mana-spawned imps from Organic Hearts, but they arrive dead without the blessing of the Dark Gods.
  • The First Horned Reaper is a more modern depiction of the horned reapers as a whole, while Rabixtrel who has been trapped in the Avatar Islands from the first game is depicted as a leaner, smaller, and bloodthirstier horned reaper.
  • Ami also develops a slow but effectively infinite source of income based on diamonds/sapphires.
• Slippery Skid: Here:
  Marbles? CAREFUL!"
  A moment after the warning, arms flailed and armour rattled as the tiny orbs got underfoot, causing soldiers to trip and fall, who in turn tripped up more of the pursuers. From one instant to another, the group of hunters was a mess of angry bodies sprawled over each other.
• Smooch of Victory: Jadeite did want to make Ami happy when he researched a way to overcome cursed eye-removal wounds using an advanced glamour, but he's surprised to have her throw herself into his arms and kiss him. Seconds later, she realises what she's doing and is even more shocked.
• Son of an Ape: In A Rescued Princess, Princess Julia (an elf) insults Ami in such a manner:
  Don't flatter yourself, you foolish human monkey-thing.
• Soul Jar: When claimed, a Dungeon Heart removes its owner's soul and transfers it to the realm of the dark gods, establishing a connection that allows the heart to draw power from that realm. Interestingly, it doesn't directly protect them from death; just the opposite, the heart becomes an additional point of vulnerability. However, the power granted by the heart makes the Keeper's body quite hard to kill (eg they can freely teleport anywhere within their territory), so like other soul jars, killing the heart is usually the favoured option.
• Species Title: The chapter, "The Flopping Dead", named for the aquatic undead that are the focus of the chapter.
• Spectral Weapon Copy: As said in Divine Opposition, Part 1, if needed, the Mantle-empowered Avatar can create "phantom blades".
• Spell Book: Detailed in "Recovering": the Reaper Armor spell was given to Ami in a book with brass bindings, which tells her how to cast the spell, along with how to fight with the scythe the spell provides.
• Spinning Out of Here: Imp teleportation is cast by doing a somersault in the air.
• Spit Take: Several.
  • After Ami surprises Cathy during sparring with a teleport spell that Cathy didn't know she could use yet, Cathy retaliates by waiting until Ami has just lifted a water bottle to her mouth, before asking whether she thinks that Jadeite has a charming smile, which sends Ami into a coughing fit. Cathy proceeds to offer some big-sisterly support, then waits for her to lift the bottle again before checking that Ami knows where babies come from.
  • Here:
    it says, 'DANGER, READ THIS FIRST' in huge red letters," the priestess quoted. "'Contents: 31 ravenous vampires'."
    Amadeus choked on his drink and spewed the reddish liquid from his nostrils. Once he had regained control over his breathing, he asked incredulously "Say what?"
  • Cathy gets caught out when Ami tells her that she wants to collect enough adamantine to fill the treasure chamber.
  • Baron Leopold is eating chicken when he sees Keeper Mercury pin the Avatar to a wall — and promptly goes into a coughing fit from it going down the wrong way.
• Spiteful Suicide: In "Assault on Wemos", Wemos's final death is used to spite Zarekos, who turned him into a vampire and has kept him in torturous enslavement for quite a while, by depriving him of the resource of his body through being willingly teleported by an enemy to parts unknown.
• Split Mind, Split Powers: Demonic Possession doesn't immediately give the possessor all the powers of their host. If they don't know the right way to cast a magic spell, the possessor would have to learn it having their host demonstrate, then memorize the shown procedure, or forcibly extract the memories. A.k.a a possessed body's individual souls' powers stay individual unless shared, and Ami is one of the few users of the power to possess people that would let the host take control sometimes, and that's because she's Bad Powers, Good People.
• Stealing from Thieves: Dungeon Keepers, who are basically all criminals, tend to loot things from each other (often so they can Cast from Money without spending their own treasure):
  • Ami from Morrigan, by Flashy Teleportation minion.
  • Midori from Ami by Thief Bag and teleporting away after.
• Sticky Situation: When the imps get access to glue:
  • Chapter 149: A New Arrival:
  all the goblins got glued to their chairs during the test.
  • Chapter 150: Healer's Prognosis: Camilla had her shoes glued to the floor, and the orc monitoring the imp and goblin testing got glued to his chair.
• Standard Evil Organization Squad: Most of the surface dwellers have this impression of Mercury's inner circle.
• Standard Royal Court: Ami's advisers all fall under this to some extent. Lampshaded by Jered after Mercury becomes Empress — he thinks some royal titles are in order.
  • Cathy fills the role of Captain of the Guard.
  • Jered fills the role of Treasurer and occasionally spy.
  • Jadeite is primarily Mercury's military adviser alongside Cathy. Also something of a bodyguard.
  • Tiger is a (self-titled) Princess...
  • Snyder is something of an adviser on various deities, and so fills the role of Court Priest.
  • Erasmus used to be the Court Wizard (well, Warlock) before his death; Torian fills that role now.
• Stationary Enemy: In multiple chapters:
  • In one chapter, Emperor Zarekos is stuck right at the Third Eye of his statue because that specific spot is keeping him alive.
  • In one chapter, Ami uses Demonic Possession on a plant, which is stuck to the ground because of its roots literally rooting it to the ground, but also because loosening itself enough to move would mean be being blown into a temple and incinerated. So as long as Ami is possessing that plant, she's stuck in place as well. But she can cast magic at range.
• Stealthy Teleportation: In "Backfire - Part 2": When Crowned Death's priests teleport themselves, they just disappear from their origin point:
  four ornately-robed figures appeared amidst them, battle staves of Calarine meeting at a point above their heads. The sizzling, violet dome surrounding the attackers shoved aside the quicker-reacting reaperbots.
  As her magical counter-attack crept over the dark priests' shield in blinding arcs, one of them tapped the floor with the back of his staff. All four of them disappeared, along with a bowl-shaped section of the floor they had been standing on.
  "Darn it! Where did they go?" Ami wondered. This kind of hit-and-run tactics wasn't something the automatons could deal with.
• Still Got It: After Amadeus returns after being gone for years, and not having fought for a while in that body, he fights against a tough opponent, Horned Reaper Rabixtrel, and wins handily:
  “Yes, I still got it,” Amadeus nodded in satisfaction as he twirled his blood-tipped sword around, none the worse for wear from the short altercation.
• Stock Medieval Meal: In Meet the Locals, the narration describes Ami's first meal at an inn like this: "The waitress appeared and set a plate down in front of the famished girl. It contained steaming potatoes and some kind of sausage she didn't recognize. The meal also came with a large mug of foamy beer". A later meal, at another inn, has "milk, honey, bread, and slices of bacon".
• Subtle Superpowering: In "A Rescued Princess", the elven princess Julia sees Ami as a threat, and tries to discreetly kill her with (what seems to be) an invisible-sawblade creation spell. She disguises the Magical Gesture for the spell as her just brushing the dirt off her shoulder.
• Sue Donym: When undercover, Jadeite names himself Jason Dayte.
• Summoning Ritual: A long one, to summon a stationary object is used multiple times.
  Ami had both of her hands raised high over her head as she struggled to pronounce the unfamiliar syllables of the spell. A clean circle of ground had expanded in front of her, pushing a ring-shaped wave of clogging blood outward as it grew in diameter. The magical circle's perimeter burst into icy flame, and thirteen evenly-spaced flickering runes appeared in the burning curtain.
  [...]
  Ami's voice reached a crescendo as she refused to let herself be distracted by the plight of her comrades. In response, lines of fire pulsed and drew a pentagram in the centre of the summoning circle. Suddenly, the entire room coloured with the bright orange tones of an active furnace when a tornado of flame exploded from the ground, sending large chunks of the summoning circle flying.
• Super Hero: The Avatar is this to the surface nations. That the Underworld regards him in a different light is putting it mildly.
• Superhero Team Uniform: From "Mysterious Island", the Sailor Fuku of the Sailor Senshi leads Mareki to be confused by Cathy:
  I'm trying to figure out what exactly you are. You dress like a sailor senshi, and I can feel some similar magic from you, but I'm not familiar with any celestial object that's called 'Cathy'.
• Supernatural Fear Inducer: A very mild version is created by Ami as an alternative to actual torture.
• Supernatural Sealing: The dwarfs try to rid of particularly dangerous Keepers by tricking them into a warded airtight adamantine chamber and locking them in.
• Supervillain Lair: Keepers love turning their Dungeons into this, and the corruption effect certainly helps. Mercury does battle with a Keeper who turned their mountain fortress into a giant leering skull once.
• Superweapon Surprise: Ami has the power to move items around within her territory. Her body counts as part of her territory. In short, she can move her arms fast enough to punch through a Horned Reaper.
• Surprise Jump: In Chapter 150: Healer's Prognosis:
  “You! Let go of that imp right now!”
  “Gyah!” Camilla jumped half her own height into the air at the sound of Ami's angry voice, coming from right behind the young fairy.
• Surveillance Station Slacker: In A Better Plan?, Theo, the watchman of Sleepymeadows is like this:
  Just as a guardsman on top of the tower was keeping a watchful eye on the surrounding fields and pastures with a telescope, a second guard attentively observed the sensitive instruments that measured vibrations in the ground. In theory.
  
  In practice, Theo considered watching the calm basins, swinging pendulums, and trembling indicators one of the most boring jobs in the world. He wasn’t going to take a nap while he was on duty, but he also wasn’t going to stare at the hands moving across never-changing charts all the time. That would lead to him falling asleep for sure.
  
  Instead, he reclined on his chair and flipped the pages of a worn booklet, glancing from time to time at the instruments.
  ...
  Now what’s this noise?
  
  He listened intently for the feint ringing that sounded just as if he had struck his helmet with a teaspoon. It repeated, and his eyes darted toward the cylindrical chimes hanging from the wall, connected to one of the vibration-measuring devices clicking away before him. Alarmed, he stood up, put the book aside, and wiped the dust and spider webs off a huge board that covered the right wall. Nervously, he searched the comparison chart for patterns matching the graphs the mechanical instruments were drawing. Once he found them, he paled.
  ...
  The proper authorities needed to be informed immediately! His keys jingled as he approached the dusty cabinet that held a crystal ball for just that purpose. He missed the keyhole twice in his haste, and hoped the orb would still be in good shape. As far as he knew, there hadn’t been a need to use it in the last two decades.
• Symbiotic Possession: Ami's ability to possess her minions' bodies is endlessly useful, such as making her extremely difficult to kill (since she can just hop bodies). However, she discovers by accident that it can also be helpful to the host; if she uses her senshi transformation while possessing someone, then their body is connected to her magic, and retains access to it even if she stops possessing them. Once Cathy discovers this, she gets Ami's agreement to leave her connected full-time, both for the physical enhancements and the magical identity protection.
• Symmetric Effect: The dark god Azzathra, who favours brute strength and violence, likes to arrange public duels to the death — but he considers magic to be cowardly and unworthy, so the arena is under an effect that causes all spells to hit both targets. Ami is sentenced to fight a Horned Reaper, and quickly realises that he's immune to his own fireballs, letting him fire at will. On the other hand, equipment isn't duplicated, on the assumption that a skilled fighter will be able to take it and use it themselves, so Ami is able to build lightning-proof armour and zap him with impunity. Until he casts a spell to recreate his equipment — scythe, pauldrons, and loincloth — which is duplicated onto her and replaces her armour and sword, leaving her publicly topless and with a weapon unsuited to her skills and strengths.

T

• Take Over the World: Ami doesn't have any particular ambitions about ruling, but her plans pretty much have to include world domination as an essential step.
  Ami: Ahem, I don't really plan to conquer the world.
  Jadeite: I doubt you will have a choice in the matter.
  Ami: Explain.
  Jadeite: Well, you are already planning to defeat the other Keepers in this world, which means conquering the underground, at least. And I won't insult your intelligence by assuming that you think the surface-dwellers will not come after you once you attempt that. Which will lead to you having to defeat them too.
• Take That!: The opening chapter takes a jab at the Sailor Senshi's sheer outfits, with even the Reaper considering Ami's skirt as evidence that she's either a dark sorceress or a lord's plaything.
  No self-respecting heroine would be caught dead in an outfit like that.
• Taken for Granite: Monteraine specializes in petrification, she's so good that she's stated to have taken out two Vampires this way — and Vampires have been shown to trump Reaperbots...
• Taking You with Me: Ami to Morrigan. Since she plans to blow up her dungeon hearts anyway, she first uses the Armageddon Spell to bring Morrigan's army into the blast radius.
• Talented, but Trained: Cathy can borrow Ami's senshi magic for a major boost to speed and strength, but even without it, she's still an experienced warrior — as an orc finds out to his cost, when he tries to win a Klingon Promotion while she's Brought Down to Normal, and ends up with a spiked pauldron through his throat.
• The Talk: In Research Breakthroughs, from Cathy, after she learns of Mercury's crush on General Jadeite:
  "Of course not. However," Cathy looked Mercury straight in the eyes, "who knows how things will develop in the future? I don't really know your background or what they teach to girls in your world, so I have to ask, for your own safety: do you know where babies come from?"
  Poor Mercury, who had just raised the bottle back to her lips, splashed herself in the face and promptly had another coughing fit. With a face as red as a tomato, she stuttered "Y-yes, but I can't believe you- I wouldn't-" Suddenly, her eyes narrowed. "Wait, this is revenge for me surprising you, isn't it?"
• Tampering with Food and Drink: Double subverted by Mukrezar, who offers his guests a serving of cake that isn't poisoned, despite him deliberately giving them that impression, but when he tries it himself, turns out to be so horrible that they're probably lucky they turned it down anyway.
  Layers of various colours glittered moistly as he raised the slice to his mouth and took a big bite. His chewing motions gradually slowed until they ceased completely, and tiny tears started glittering at the corners of the Keeper's red-glowing eyes.
  "Oh, Master," the sooty form of his butler said as he came walking around the cake-bearing platform. He patted his beard to extinguish some smouldering hairs and shook his head sadly when he saw the elf's pained expression. "You never learn."
• A Tankard of Moose Urine: Ami encounters dwarven wine, and regrets that her current glamour includes functional taste buds, as it's definitely an acquired taste.
  Perhaps the dwarfs were aware of this, as the stein certainly contained enough wine to make a serious attempt at acquiring it.
• Target Spotter: In Hunt's End, Ami has her warlocks use scrying to target an invisible, but scryable target:
  “Torian, use scrying to triangulate his exact position and tell me,” she ordered. “I need the best possible precision.”
  “Just a moment. Hmm. Yes. Imagine a straight line between the wide end of the emerald-studded sarcophagus and the right foot of the statue on the wall. Imagine a second line between you and the garish double-headed axe on the wall. He’s standing right on their intersection.”
  “Are you absolutely sure?” she verified.
  “To about a hand’s span close, yes,”
  That was good enough for her. Aiming for the average dwarf’s height, she brought a Shabon Spray Freezing from her storage and launched it at the indicated location.
• A Taste of the Lash: In Advisers Advise, from a discussion with her inner circle on how to punish her minions, in a way she'd be willing to do:
  "...flogging is used even in some surface armies," Cathy's energetic voice sounded behind her. The tall blonde was gesticulating with her hands, apparently trying to convince her boyfriend of something.
• Teacher/Student Romance: When Ami realises that she's developing a crush on Jadeite, she quickly reminds herself that it would be unethical in both directions; he's her magic teacher, and she's his employer. Of course, there is no ethics board governing Keepers...
• Teen Rebellion: In "Ambush", Jared's conclusions on the mysterious "registers as evil" Mercury, strangely appearing in the Light Is Good surfacer lands, as summarized by Cathy:
  Cathy nodded, examining the information from all angles. "So you think she's some kind of sheltered princess from the Underworld, out on a bout of teenage rebellion?"
  "More or less."
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Where do we start...
  • Mercury and her Horned Reaper, a warrior of good and an evil demon.
  • Cathy and Jadeite. She finds him to be arrogant, condescending, and she doesn't entirely trust his intentions regarding Mercury.
  • Mareki and Jadeite. Youma are terrified of dark generals, as a rule.
  • Mercury (and her advisors) and Marda. The trolls don't fully trust a Keeper, and seem constantly on the verge of breaking away. Mercury gets frustrated with Marda being a loose cannon.
  • Alphel and Arachne. Keepers all hate each other, but can still participate in an Enemy Mine team-up against a larger threat (or a more tempting prize).
  • The Underworlders between each other, for the same reasons as Keepers.
  • The Avatar with Mercury and Rabixtrel.
  • Mukrezar and Crowned Death.
  • Azzathra, Crowned Death, and The Unraveller of Mysteries. Dark gods do not get along well, and tend to ally based on blackmail and coercion.
• Telekinesis:
  • Keepers can freely move anything that belongs to them, with considerable precision. For longer distances, though, they can also just teleport things.
  • Jadeite can use telekinesis on any object and on a large scale, lifting boulders and portal stones and even an inactive dungeon heart.
• Telepathy: Multiple:
  • Warlocks can communicate with their Dungeon Keeper using a spell for it.
  • Tserk and other tentacle monsters are without mouths, communicating with others via telepathy.
  • From "Chatting with Marda":
    you made sure that everyone in a command position learned the spell for communicating telepathically," Jered pointed out
• Teleporter's Visualization Clause: One mentioned, but never seen, teleportation method allows the user to return to places where they've been. Ami was looking for teleportation to retrieve objects to her location at the time.
• Teleportation Sickness: In A Promotion, it is said that "vampire teleportation ... rather disagrees with a living body.", as previously seen as "dry heaves" in Mukrezar's Return, which presumably would have been vomiting if the user did not have an empty stomach.
• Teleportation with Drawbacks: Dungeon Keeper teleportation has a range of about 60 kilometers from the starting point.
• Tempting Fate:
  • The first time Cathy sees goblins wearing sailor fukus, her reaction is, "I hope you aren't planning on putting me into one of those outfits too!" After gaining access to Senshi powers through being temporarily possessed by Ami, she willingly embraces the uniform. And even worse ones, when pragmatism demands.
  • Upon being told of the plan to make a lab rat claim a Dungeon Heart so that Ami can study the process, Tiger is initially skeptical, but eventually decides, "What's the worst that could happen?" Naturally, the next scene involves an attack by psychotic imps.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: In the first chapter, the Horned Reaper correctly identifies Ami as a girl based on her clothing:
  A female, judging from the skirt and the oh-so-cutesy ribbons.
• There Are No Therapists: Mostly true, but Ami does actually get some psychiatric care from the Light to help her deal with the horrible flashbacks from centuries of Keeper memories. She can't repeat it, though, unless she wants to take the offer of an eternal sanctuary prison.
• There Is Only One Bed: From "Journey's End", where there's one more person than there are sleeping bags, but one couple shares, so there's just enough:
  The party spent a night camping out, rather than stopping at the overcrowded inn, as Ami's red-glowing eyes would have led to more trouble than the added comfort would have been worth. The white-robed senshi was excluded from the guard rotation, for obvious reasons. Despite this, she placed one of her imps somewhere well outside of the campfire's light radius in order to keep an eye on things. She didn't trust Boris to not have another go at her while she was asleep. Jered and Cathy were sharing one sleeping bag, which caused the blue-haired girl to blush, but at least she could use the spare.
• There Was a Door:
  • Escape from Arachne's Dungeon:
    An imp dropped down out of thin air, startling the red demon who was leaning bored against the wall. Immediately, the bug-eyed creature started hacking away at the unfinished rock in a frenzy, sending up a cloud of dust that billowed into the narrow corridor. After tunnelling through barely half a metre of rock, it broke through into the chamber behind, sending a spray of crumbling debris and stone spilling on the expensive carpet below.
    The occupant of the room was sitting in a high-backed armchair with red cushions, and was staring at the intruder with wide eyes.
    [...]
    "You could have used the door," the warlock stated with a nod toward one corner of the room, where the polished wood of an entrance gleamed in the fireplace's light. From the outside, it looked no different than any other piece of the wall. "From this," he pointed at the fuku-clad imp, "I brilliantly conclude that you are here to secure my not inconsiderable abilities for a Keeper with rather strange taste in uniforms."
  • "Cornering The Duke":
  Metal crumpled and bent under her fingers, and with a short yank, she almost ripped the door off its hinges. Purplish smoke escaped from the opening.
  “It wasn’t locked, you know,” the figure on the throne commented drily, far less impressed than his court wizard.
• Things That Go "Bump" in the Night: Parents tell their children that Mercury (and presumably other keepers) will come and eat them if they are naughty. One of the sacrifices is confused when Mercury seems offended by the thought.
• Third Eye: As said in Assault on Wemos, the idol on the Avatar Islands has one, sorta of. And it's magical and meant to help ascend someone to godhood:
  At its very top, the former ruler of the continent floated in the centre of the huge pentagram decorating the idol's bald forehead almost like a glowing third eye.
• Third Party Stops Attack: In "What a Mess", Roselle stops Juzint's assassination of Melissa, with lightning that threw off her aim:
  The pinkish-white arcs of lightning from the hurried shot fanned out, raking the left arm of the blurring shadow, just before she could reach her target [...] A spasm went through Juzint's leg, just at the wrong instant. The flow of time seemed to return to normal, but instead of intestines spilling out of the blue-haired girl's stomach, only blood surged from the four crimson lines drawn across her belly.
• This Is a Drill: Dwarfs have drills to assault dungeons with.
  A group of engineers assembling a large drill
• This Is Not a Floor: Ami inverts this in the episode "Convoluted Rescue Plan, Go!" The floor is made invisible, but her opponents assume it has been destroyed. Leads to a distraction.
• This Is Unforgivable!: What amounts to this happens during the invasion of Dreadfog Island, when Empress Mercury learns that the undead priests of the Crowned Death have plucked out the eyes of 8,000 captive innocents they intend to sacrifice — including children — so that they couldn't cause trouble. Ami is not pleased.
• Threat Backfire: General Jadeite initially underestimates what Ami can do as a Keeper, and is angry to have been entered into her service without knowing she's a Sailor Senshi. He soon learns he's no longer the big fish.
  Jadeite: Why are you grinning? Do you think your bubbles can stop me, a general of the Dark Kingdom?
  <Mercury's dragon gets his attention and then roars in his face>
  Ami: You will find that I have graduated from using bubbles.
• Through the Ceiling, Stealthily: Multiple characters do it:
  • "Convoluted Rescue Plan, Go!": Tserk entering a church through the shaft allowing the bellrope into the church:
    the huge instrument suspended from a thick wooden bar. More interesting was the shaft directly underneath it, barely wide enough for a man to move along the handholds set into the wall. Of course it was blocked, but the cover was a simple grate, so that the rope used to ring the bell could dangle down through the gaps into the building below.
  • In "Trapped (second half)", Tiger stealthily enters the underground sections of the city of Salthalls by taking advantage of a Crash in Through the Ceiling hole from a few chapters before.
• Tickle Torture: Sailor Moon does this with a Youma to see if she knows anything about Ami's location after her vanishing. Sailor Mars is embarrassed by the ordeal.
• Time Abyss: The Light Gods and Dark Gods as categories have existed since "a time so long ago that even the continents of this planet did not yet have their present shape".
• Time Bomb: Referenced in "Beryl's Plan" when Ami, a.k.a Keeper Mercury, uses Jadeite's lap as one, after she gets drunk, and he's nervous due to her heavy scrutiny of him due to their unclear relationship status:
  Jadeite couldn't have been more nervous if someone had dumped a ticking time bomb onto his lap. The comparison was uncharitable to the red-faced girl who was using his legs as a pillow, but he found it fitting.
• Time Zones Do Not Exist: Averted.
  • It's night in some places and not others, so when Snyder is making calls to people all across the world, he has to determine who's even awake to receive them.
  • Where it's night in one place, it's day in the opposite side of the world. This is weaponized to kill vampires, who are unable to revive if killed in daylight, so teleporting one halfway across the world makes them vulnerable.
• Tim Taylor Technology: As said in More Recruits: Some of the warlocks in Ami's employ think that way. The results disagreed with them:
  Spell not working, despite the calculations looking correct? Simply use more lightning! After that little disaster, Ami had made sure that the restored labs contained nothing flammable.
• Today, X. Tomorrow, the World!: From the end of Valuable Art: Mukrezar, after having taken down the powerful cult of Crowned Death:
  Mukrezar thrust a fist in the air. "Today, your cult. Soon, the Avatar!"
• Toilet Horror: Arachne's spiders attacked people through the sewers and their toilets when she attacked Albrecht's kingdom.
• Token Evil Teammate: Surprisingly enough, Ami is able to gather enough of a genuinely good inner circle that Jadeite and Torian stand out. And even Jadeite is a ruthless pragmatist rather than a sadist.
• Tongue Trauma: From Time Flies, Ami, noticed that "Jadeite, who was sitting across the table from her, had winced while chewing, she put down her own sandwich in concern. "Do the burns still give you trouble?". After a segment musing on how caring his new boss is, compared to his old Bad Boss, he responds:
  "If you must know, I bit my tongue."
• Too Desperate to Be Picky: After evacuating to an iceberg with a crystal Dungeon Heart, Ami is actually in a pretty secure position, but many of the Underworld creatures don't appreciate the value of strategic retreat. Warlocks are smart enough to understand, but trolls and orcs and so forth are a different matter, viewing her as an unimpressive scavenger. She ends up hiring goblins for lack of better foot soldiers. And trains them, not as infantry, but as pilots for her remote-controlled killer robots.
• Too Dumb to Live: The Dumb Blonde vampire, who is called "suicidally stupid" two scenes later in the same chapter. Ironically, this vampire survives both the fighting in said chapter, and Ami's later purge of the vampires. She is seen asking questions regarding the targets of Ami's persuasion campaign. "Your Majesty, can you offer us advice on the best approach here? Should we be intimidating? Select targets of the opposite gender?"
• Too Funny to Be Evil: Mukrezar. Full Stop.
• Took a Level in Badass: Most notably being Ami, Cathy, and Tserk.
• Too Kinky to Torture: The Dark Mistresses, of course.
  • Averted in the case of Ami's psychological torture. She largely bluffs them, and the mistress creates the impression that she did unspeakable things to them.
• Trail of Blood: From Interrupted Plotting, it's how Rabixtrel is first found, as a trail of blood from his victims, leads scryers to him:
  “Let’s see if whoever is running that place has managed to attract something other than skeletons and ghosts by now.”
  “I got something,” one of the magicians called, stroking his beard.
  Ami hurried over, followed by the others. “That quickly?”
  “I just followed the trail of blood,” the gangly wizard answered, gesturing at the screen with a gnarled hand. He soon felt crowded when everyone leaned in around him to get a better view of the cavernous hall he had found.
• Training from Hell: Cathy is actually quite a kind and good person, but she understands that you sometimes have to be Cruel to Be Kind. Her combat lessons leave Ami exhausted and hurting, and that's just from the warm-up run — but also rapidly improving.
• Transformation Is a Free Action: From A Deal with the Devil:
  "Mercury Power, Make Up!" A flash of blue light concealed Ami for a split second when she triggered her transformation to restore her ruined outfit. It also re-applied her make-up, removing all traces of crying, and cleaned her body, as it was intended to.
• Transmutation: Magic can be turned into something that looks like gold, gold can substitute for magic, and magic can be used to gather and shape ambient matter into solid objects like paper.
• Treasure Room: Dungeons have treasuries to store the gold and other valuables for Cast from Money magic.
• Trojan Horse: Monteraine acts as one while infiltrating one of Morrigan's Dungeons, with Ami herself playing the Greek, being a rat, and therefore small enough to hide in Monteraine's hair while on her shoulder.
• Trouble Entendre: From "A Fitting Punishment": Subverted intentionally, using the vagueness of "I got rid of them,", and lampshaded after, by noting precisely what happened:
  The bravest of the dark elf women raised a shaking hand. "Er, w-what did you do to them?"
  "I got rid of them," the teenager replied in an impassive tone of voice, trying to pretend being the kind of person that they would not want to disobey. It was fairly hard to project an unfeeling mask, if she was honest with herself. A large part of her only wanted to provide them with some blankets, since their skin was starting to look blue from the cold. She obviously hadn't killed the bile demons either, only tossed them into the portal and given them a hard shove to help them through. If her prospective employees opted to misunderstand her, so be it.
• True Companions: The "most elite full-fairy aerial recon force of the Shining Concord Empire" is made up of fairies in all the colours of the rainbow, and despite getting on each other's nerves, they're unquestioningly loyal to each other. When Camilla becomes an ambassador to Empress Mercury, the others are assigned as her bodyguards, because they would be miserable with one of them missing.
• Turning Back Human: Marda, on touching the Avatar's Mantle, is revealed to be a human who was turned into a troll. More specifically, the human, male, Avatar Amadeus, into a female troll.

U-Z

• Undead Laborers: From "Catastrophic Failure, Part 1", Crowned Death uses skeletons to build his high temple, as noted by Ami:
  She assumed that Crowned Death found it more economical to use his undead forces for construction than to make the dungeon heart spend gold. In particular if the latter could be used to fuel his arrival in this world instead.
• Underestimating Badassery: Before becoming the dreaded Empress of the Avatar Islands and having her reputation catch up to her, Keeper Mercury was a nobody at best and an infamous deviant keeper with a losing streak at worst. Many underworlders and heroes underestimated her because of that, and often faced her expecting an easy win only to be unpleasantly surprised.
• Underground City: Multiple:
  • Ami's civillian complex, like the rest of her dungeon, is underground.
  • Dwarf cities are mainly underground, with the surface section being much smaller by comparison.
• Undressing the Unconscious: Subverted in "Dealing with the Blockade Ship", where Dandel worries this may have happened. From Dandel's examination of herself:
  Clearly, someone had rescued them, but who, and for what reason? Suddenly worried, she looked down at herself, and was relieved that her familiar costume was still in place, even if was slashed in places and stained with coagulated blood.
• Unequal Pairing: The biggest obstacle between Ami and Jadeite is her awareness of the large power imbalance between them. Since he has officially entered her service, he is magically prevented from doing anything to harm her, and conversely she has ultimate power over him, to the point where she would be capable of snapping his neck with a mere act of will; at one point, while fast asleep, she forces him into her bed so she can cuddle him, and teleports him back whenever he tries to leave (which her friends find hilarious, but Ami herself is deeply embarrassed once she wakes up). Jadeite's upbringing in the Dark Kingdom means he doesn't actually see a problem with such an unbalanced power dynamic, but Ami is clinging to her principles. While still being mutually attracted and necessarily spending a lot of time together.
• Unholy Ground: This appears to be the common belief about how Mukrezar defeated the Avatar. "Threw troops at him until the death toll was high enough to consecrate the area to Crowned Death and do a ritual to make his powers gutter out." It later turns out that that isn't the true explanation: the Avatar's mantle was stolen and replaced with a fake, robbing him of his invulnerability.
• Unicorn: They exist, as there's at least one circus with one. They also are implied to exist in the Shining Concord Empire, when it's discussed about the effects of it being host to a high-magic area:
  Can’t have the silly fairies get all high on magic and fly into trees or stab themselves on a unicorn or something.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: The reader learns about Ami's plan to rescue Jadeite from the Light temple as it's executed.
• Unspoken Retort:
  • In "Seizing Heart Number 3", italics to show a minion's thoughts in text, after Ami's demonstration of the dangers of staying too long in enemy territory to explain her orders:
    "I shall follow your instructions to the letter." And work on my shields. The attack was nothing to sneeze at, but he thought he could fend it off if it didn't go off right in his face, which it had the potential to do, unfortunately.
  • From "A Minor Complication": When talking about how gods want money in exchange for power, Snyder, a worshipper of The Light, didn't want to get into a theological debate:
    Snyder pouted as the dark mage sneered at him, but managed to bite back a sharp-tongued retort about how the Light didn't need to be bribed to provide help to the needy.
• Vampires Sleep in Coffins: From "Invasion Planning":
  Ami: "True. But tell me, where do vampires sleep?"
  Jared: Coffins.
• Verbed Title: The chapter, "Captured!", where Ami and other heroes are captured by villainous forces.
• Verbing Nouny: The chapter, "Cornering the Duke". The Verbing = Cornering, and the Noun = The Duke.
• Victor Gains Loser's Powers: How Azzathra's duels usually end, as said in The Duel.
  "As you all know, our Great Lord, Azzathra the Mighty Tyrant, traditionally rewards the winner by bestowing upon him some aspect of the loser's strength."
  ...
  "However, Lord Azzathra, in his infinite wisdom, has decided that such a gift would clearly be wasted ... she will receive some of the horned reaper's knowledge instead."
• Villain Ball Magnet: Being the only instance of Dark Is Not Evil among Keepers, Ami cannot convince the forces of good that she means well. With the exception of the Cathy-Jered-Snyder trio, and the mind-reading Light Gods. To the latter's credit, they have requested that the forces of good try to capture Ami alive.
• Villainous Crush: This is how the fairies think Keeper Mercury feels about Jadeite.
• Villain Teleportation: Well, the Lightsiders have hero portals, but the underworlders have more teleportation methods:
  • Teleportation through shadows: From "Nero's Spell (Part 2)": Seen by Alphel's scarred dark mistress: who "rose like a blob of black tar from the pooling shadows".
  • Dark Kingdom Teleportation
  • Vampire teleportation
  • Keeper Teleport.
  • Imp Teleportation by somersault.
• Waking Up Elsewhere: Multiple:
  • It's how Ami is introduced to the Dungeon Keeper world in the first place, as said in the third paragraph of the first chapter:
    Ami Mizuno, currently Sailor Mercury, let out a soft groan as she woke. She was lying on her stomach, and, judging from the way her ribs, side, and face ached, had landed that way, possibly head-first. Feeling cold, rough stone under her left cheek, she raised her head off the ground. There was a stinging sensation and a slight resistance as coagulating blood stuck to the floor. Deep blue eyes opened and stared unseeing into the darkness. Ami could hear dripping noises echoing in the distance, and the cold air smelled of mould and a hint of sulphur. Where was she, and how did she get here?
  • When Maggie wakes up in "Deadline":
    Maggie opened her eyes, feeling drowsy. Confused by the softness of her mattress, she blinked as bright light blinded her. This isn't my bed, she realised with a start, and her heartbeat quickened.
• Wandering Culture: The orcs of the dwarven mountains do this to avoid being hunted down by the dwarfs as easily, as Ami explains when talking about her potential orc recruits to people to warn them.
• "Wanted!" Poster: It's implied that it's what the warrant for Snyder's arrest is, from "Vampire Weaknesses", as it is used by Bounty Hunters and had a "sketch that bore a great resemblance to the redhead".
• Warrior Undead: In Valuable Art, a being explicitly called an "undead knight", with "a dented and scraped suit of full plate", is mentioned, and is part of a gathering of sentient undead.
• The War Room: Keepers don't normally have a good skill set for coordinating an offensive (though their defensive skills are superb), but Ami combines various abilities to get a good approximation. She uses her unusually large mana reserves to power a team of warlocks scrying the battlefield, receiving updates on the field via Scavenger Room transmissions and replying by making an imp write messages. It makes her assault on the western Keeper quite straightforward, despite his substantial raw combat strength.
  Cathy: Group at grid cube three-three-five onto left screen, the group at grid cube eight-zero-two on the right one! The Keeper is leading the third group herself. Get to work! ... Inform Mercury that there's a clump of hostiles waiting for her in the next room, advise that the route to the left appears to be lightly defended.
  Jered: Instruction from Mercury: Enemy Keeper at seven-seven-three.
  Cathy: Scan it with crystal ball three. Jadeite, he's all yours!
• Weakened by the Light: As said in "Vampire Weaknesses", on the titular subject:
  "A secondary weakness is direct sunlight," Snyder said.
  "It turns them into ash?" Ami asked, not being entirely unfamiliar with her world's vampire stories.
  The acolyte looked at her oddly. "If only it was that easy. It does not affect them directly, but a vampire that is killed while exposed to daylight does not revive. That's why vampires generally don't come out during the day."
• Weaponized Teleportation:
  • Jadeite can make portals from Earth to the Dark Kingdom, but when he uses them on Adushul, they instead connect to the Underworld — some of which is full of magma. Combined with his ability to teleport, this means he can enter any room of a dungeon and flood it with lava.
  • If a creature being moved by Keeper transport reaches the limit of the Keeper's range, then it will be shunted out of the transport realm back into the regular world — violently. And Keeper transport can be used on prisoners, not just minions. Ami assassinates Taleth by seizing him in an icy hand, putting him into transport, then portalling herself away; he ends up spread out over ten square metres, with his powdered remains coating the portal anchor.
• Weapons Breaking Weapons: In "Divine Opposition, Part 1", the Avatar wields a sword powered by divine power of protection, allowing it to easily shatter other weapons.
  "Your sword does not look as if it will take the stress much longer," the Avatar pointed out, dispassionate as if he was talking about the weather. He wasn't even breathing heavily. To Cathy's growing alarm, he was right, too. The battered, notched remains of what was once a proud blade looked as if they would break apart at any moment now. How could she- "Yargh!? The blonde's world went upside down as a flick of the Avatar's own sword — still unmarred, the cheating bastard
• Weather-Control Machine: One possible use of a Dungeon Heart, due to the corruption it emits being able to affect everything in its user's territory:
  • Ami uses it to create a Perpetual Storm for her windmills.
  • Zarekos uses it to make cloud cover to protect his vampires from their weakness to sunlight, as said in "Vampire Weaknesses":
    "Um, there is no direct sunlight on the Avatar Islands any more," Cathy pointed out, "only fiery clouds all day and all night."
• We Have Reserves: Most Keepers — three guesses who the main exception is. This is still played straight by Ami in the earlier part of the story with golems, referenced by the chapter title, "Inhuman Waves", referring to "human wave" tactics. In fact she vastly overestimated how many reserves she had in her first major battle using them.
• We Need a Distraction: Ami uses Tserk to break into a Temple of The Light, filled with Priests, Guards, and the Fairy Sisters to rescue Jadeite using nothing more than a Wand that makes things go invisible, a flask of acid, a flask of base, some flour, some marbles, and two pills that transform whoever swallows them into mice. Tserk succeeds.
• We Will Meet Again: Tserk swears he will have his revenge against Keeper Midori. Why? Tserk had finally convinced Cathy and Mercury to let him give them a massage, and Keeper Midori's scrying ended it.
• What Could Have Been: A Pusakuronu's omake tells the story of how instead of summoning Mukrezar, Crowned Death would've summoned Sailor Saturn to aid him instead.
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Dark General Jadeite seems to be heading this way. At first, he's confused by Ami's, who's his boss, feelings for him. Later, by his own empathy.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Dr. Mizuno to Ami in "Family Matters," though a milder example than most.
  • Later Ami finally has a minor breakdown, blowing up in Camilla's face when she continues to say that Mercury is evil even after rescuing the civilians from Dreadfog and evacuating the Avatar Islands.
• When Elders Attack: Cornering The Duke:
  Only an elderly witch, her wrinkly face distorted in rage, swung her staff at the fast-moving blur that was Ami’s form.
  [...]
  Undeterred, the old woman proceeded to whack her on the head with her staff over and over again, cursing her with language so coarse her cheeks grew hot.
• Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: All of the villains and most of the heroes wonder on a regular basis where Empress Mercury gets all of her awesome equipment and magic from. Where does she come up with these remote battle drones? The Airships, the Dominate Undead Spell? Attempts to steal/emulate her stuff are the subject of several subplots.
• The Whole World Is Watching: Big fights between what are effectively world superpowers are watched by many through scrying magic, such as Crystal Ball and scrying pool.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: Abbot Durval informs Mercury that he is unusually old, but that the Light gods have stopped making mortals ageless, since it tends to drive resentment, envy, and loneliness. (Naturally, the dark gods are fine with it.)
• Wilting Odor: When one of Ami's rats gets a whiff of treasure that had been guarded by bile demons in an enclosed room, the rat then flees with its nose bleeding.
• Winged Humanoid: Multiple:
  • Fairies
  • Both types of Angels:
    • Light Angels, just called plain "Angels". As said in A New Arrival, Angels have "white, feathery wings".
    • Dark Angels all have wings of one kind or another.
• Wishing Well: From Corruption?: When Ami muses on sacrificing gold in her temple, her Reaper says: "The temple is no wishing well, you dolt!"
• Woken Up at an Ungodly Hour: In "Resignation", someone is woken up early to receive important world news:
  King Albrecht woke with a start, roused by the loud bangs against his bedroom door. The monarch rubbed his eyes as he sat up. Through the window, he could see the moon hang low over the horizon. Sunrise seemed to be still a few hours away, and he groaned. Still, his subjects wouldn't wake him if it wasn't urgent.
• Wolf Whistle: From "Beryl's Plan": Some people in the audience of a striptease make some:
  the crazy dark elf undulating to goblin music and slowly doffing her clothes, accompanied by wolf whistles
• Won't Take "Yes" for an Answer: When Empress Mercury is reviewing and accepts the plans for the embassy for the Shining Concord Empire, a terrified Camilla is so certain of her doom she invokes this trope.
• The Worf Effect: Ami's "fearsome" Reaperbots often serve only to illustrate how much more fearsome her current opponent is. They are still more than a match for most of the stuff she is expected to encounter from your average Keeper (goblins, spiders, skeletons), and vastly more effective than their pilot goblins would natively be, but once things like vampires, dark angels, or real reapers show up, they're cut down like wheat.
• Would Hurt a Child: Multiple Underworld forces:
  • Arachne's dungeon includes a larder full of spider-silk-wrapped bundles that Ami's visor reveals to contain human skeletons, some of them child-sized.
  • As Ami relates in "Moving On", Malleus Offing the Offspring:
    he sired children for the sole purpose of sa-sacrificing them!
  • From "Divine Opposition, Part 1": When the devastation that was inflicted on the Avatar Isles was related:
    "This used to be lush forest, where fairies danced around standing stones. The laughter of their children turned into heart-rending screams as the Keepers' hordes boiled them alive!"
  • From "Deadline": The vampire that mind-controlled a family to get to a place to sell them:
    "That vampire had them walk with no regard for their health, even the children."
• X-Ray Vision: The stated reason most of the Underworld wears leather clothing, because magic vision can see through cloth but not skin, and that's technically what leather is. Whether or not this is actually the case, or just an easy excuse to sell such clothing is left up to the readers to decide.
  • This was explained to Ami by her dark elf tailor.
  • Ami was nice enough to confirm it for us, For Science! only of course...
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Ami needs a lot of reassurance from her non-evil employees after she summarily executes Malleus. All of them, even acolyte Snyder, are certain that she did the right thing — though Cathy is also empathetic enough to realise that she shouldn't do it again in a hurry.
• You Can't Go Home Again:
  • At least, the Light Gods don't want Ami to so long as she's a Keeper, since the Dark Gods will be able to follow her there.
  • Also a problem for Jered, Cathy, Snyder and Camilla, as their accidental association with a Keeper make them untrustworthy in the eyes of most of the rest of the world.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Duke Libasheshtan can't believe that Keeper Mercury just asked about how one becomes an acolyte of the Light gods, apparently with a view to applying.
  Duke Libasheshtan: You know what? I'm not even going to dignify that kind of insanity with an answer.
• You Monster!:
  • It's clear In-Universe that Keepers are usually absolute monsters, and the reason for the prejudice against them is that it's always been correct until now. Ami herself uses the phrase the first time she encounters a torture chamber. Special mention, though, goes to Keeper Malleus for the fact that Ami has to actually sift through his centuries of memories, experiencing them in the first person, an ordeal that causes her to throw up, unsuccessfully, because of how hard she's already gritting her teeth. When she's done, she immediately snaps his neck without further discussion.
    Ami: He—<points>—had angered me greatly.
  • Camilla reacts this way to Jadeite when he half blackmails, half tricks her into helping to retrieve Ami from the realm of the dark gods.
• Zeppelins from Another World: Inverted, incredibly, when Ami has her Senshi friends transmit info about zeppelins so that she can build them in the Dungeon Keeper world—a world in which airships are completely unknown—to transport an army across the world rapidly.
• Zerg Rush: Subverted when Ami is considering the option of hiring goblins, and recognises that they aren't very effective even in groups. (She hires them anyway, for lack of better options.)
  In her mind, she pictured one of the child-sized figures confronting a looming, pale vampire. She amended the scene to make it five of the sword-wielding greenskins surrounding the enemy, as goblins worked best in packs. Her brain immediately computed the most likely outcome, and the mental image turned into that of a vampire, bloated like a tick and patting its belly, standing over a heap of dismembered limbs.

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